So, where was I? Oh yes, I had just begun introducing you to my own little island in the vast sea of development hell.

After lying to myself for a long time about the need to include a zoom feature in Pandemic 2.5, I took a step back in mid December and looked at the situation dispassionately. I came to the conclusion that while it would result in a great amount of tedious work, introducing zooming would be for the best: not only would it make the game more playable on smaller devices, it would also provide a greater sense of interactivity.

With that settled, I spent the rest of my holidays eating far too much candy and devoting every spare second to playing games. Not only was the Steam sale ongoing, but I had also come to an agreement with myself: 2012 would be a year of productivity; I would reserve all digital entertainment (movies, tv shows, video games) and pointless web browsing till oddly dated Wednesdays. I had already beaten The Binding of Isaac 3 times (thanks Alex!) and everything was great, that is, until New Year’s Eve.

December 31st hit and as I slid into consciousness I became painfully aware that a desert had apparently migrated to and nestled within my throat. But I was confused, such a thing of course made no sense! Climates don’t occupy bodies like parasitic infestations much less migrate like flocks of birds. And while I tried to rise, my confusion was steadily replaced by a growing sense of dread and recognition. A bubble had emerged from some dark recess of my mind, and as it grew, it rose with greater purpose until finally sundering the space between my eyes and bursting. My inflamed eyes flashed open in realization as sweat trickled across my brow. I was sick! Such a thing hadn’t happened in an age, and here I was, sick, on New Year’s Eve. WTF indeed. Needless to say I to stayed home and cried (sarcasm hint). Not only had my night been stolen from me, it looked like my New Year’s resolution was about to go up in flames as well - traditionally on the rare occasions where I’ve been sick, I’ve usually distracted myself with video games.

I woke up January first in an even worse state than I had the morning before but something else too had changed. It seemed that at some point in my restless night a switch in my mind had been thrown resulting in all doubts over my Wednesday schedule turning to ash. I wasn’t sure if the fever was to be thanked but I cared little. It was 2012, and I was going to come into the New Year swinging.

I got nothing directly related to Pandemic 2.5 accomplished in those first 7 sick days of January (my eyes were little more than smoldering coals) but I was a bloody hurricane of productivity regardless. And on the 8th, I woke up freed of my biological binds. I was alive, I was healthy, and Pandemic was in need of a zoom feature.

Like I stated in my previous journal, I spent roughly 8 days working non-stop on writing my own 3D terrain editor tool. Once the tool was finished, it took me an additional 7 days to break down and simplify all of the existing region models for the game.

So now here I am, 16 days of non-stop work later and what do I have to show for it? Do I have a completed game ready to be sent to Apple? Nope! You can now zoom in and out of the map by pinching your fingers in-and-out over the screen without stumbling into game-breaking lag. Yay!

All of this really drives home the great importance of establishing (extensive) design documents prior to diving into development. If I had simply taken an extra day and really fleshed out my documents, I would have saved myself 15 days of work by just telling the artist to ensure a much lower polycount for the region models.

So now with zooming out of the way, what do I have left to do before the game is ready to be sent to Apple? Well aside from the usual presentation and technical polishes, I’ve just the disease menu, disease mechanics and game over screens left to finish. The game will be completed by the end of the month and hopefully submitted to Apple by then as well but it may be delayed a few days depending on how much time the beta testers need with the game.

Thanks for reading. I’ll talk to you guys again soon!